


Emperor of Sand

by GuileGale



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Chad is an absolute unit, F/F, F/M, Hollow Zangetsu Swears A Lot, More Politics Than Canon, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Reworked Setting Laws - Spiritual Energy Does Not Block Swords, The Bount Arc Doesn't Exist, Zangetsu Is The Hollow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-11 23:31:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20161921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GuileGale/pseuds/GuileGale
Summary: "The shattering of the wheel of Fate is not the end. Discard fear. Face forward. Never retreat. Never give in. The only path forward is that of conquest."Kurosaki Ichigo discovers an entirely different spirit in the depths of his soul in the Shattered Shaft. The consequences will upset more than one centuries-old plot, and change the destinies of many more. But all he wants is to save someone marked for death.





	Emperor of Sand

## Volume One: BURIALS

_ Born apart _

_ Borne together _

_ Whims of fate care not _

_ for the efforts and toils of men _

_ let us walk together then _

_ unto that final lesson of life _

_ and face death with raised swords _

_ and bared fangs _

### Chapter I: The Sinking Night  


Deep underground, in a bunker carved out from beneath an inconspicuous candy shop, Kurosaki Ichigo was dying.

No, that wasn’t quite right. He was already dead. He had, actually, been dead for three days, and possibly longer now that he thought about it. Maybe he had truly died that night more than a month ago, when he had willingly shoved a sword through his chest for the sake of his family. Maybe he had died when Byakuya Kuchiki had stabbed him twice, unceremoniously ripping Rukia’s powers from the core of his soul. Maybe he had died when the people he had asked for help had cut his chain of fate and stuffed him in this hole. He didn’t really know, anymore.

What he did know was pain. Absolute agony ripped through his body as every link in the chain attached to his sternum continued to devour one another in a frenzy he could only liken to that of a piranha. Disturbingly human teeth ripped at the metal as it it were flesh, with each bite-sized chunk taken out of a link by one mouth forming into a new maw, only to start the process over again. And it _ hurt. _He wasn’t sure when he started screaming, but he hadn’t stopped since he began. Up above, he could vaguely hear the shopkeeper and his brats speaking in worried tones over the sound of his own voice. When he glanced upwards, hoping against the odds that Urahara would see the trouble he was in and put a stop to it, he was greeted with the coldest eyes he had ever seen from the man. In that moment, he felt smaller than an insect, placed under a microscope for study. It was galling and humiliating, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. 

If there was one thing Kurosaki Ichigo hated more than anything else, it was being powerless. This was a driving force behind his decision to come to this place, submit himself to the tutelage of a frankly untrustworthy individual he didn’t know the first thing about, and endure the outright murder attempts that the lunatic dared call “training”. If he had any other option, he probably would have taken that first, but as it stood, at the time, he had been desperate. His friend kidnapped, an ally wounded, and his powers ripped from him by the blade of a sword he couldn’t see coming, Ichigo had been left with no other option but to beg the unkempt shopkeeper to return some semblance of power to him. Otherwise, the one person he owed the most would die without him ever being able to settle that debt. That thought alone, the idea of being unable to repay Rukia Kuchiki for the life-changing decision she had made that night, tore at him almost as badly as the chain dangling from his chest tore at itself. Without that chain, Urahara had warned him, he would become a Hollow, and then he would die. Fear coursed through him, pulsing with his heartbeat every second.

_ ‘Is this all I’m worth?’ _  
  
He struggled to stand under the pain and bindings around his body, his aching muscles screaming at him for rest where none could be given.

_ ‘Is this all I have?’ _

His arms strained against the spirit fabric, against the blades pinning it to his body. There was no give in the bondage, and his only reward was more pain.

_ ‘Is this all my strength was ever worth?’ _

The chain was almost gone now, barely a single link left before it reached his chest, and with it, his heart. And given how violent the process had been so far, he doubted the next stage would be any nicer. He screwed his eyes shut, both in pain and in fear, as the frenzy intensified one last time, before…

The last link turned itself upon the plate in his chest, and began to eat. As the last bit of metal vanished from his body, Ichigo’s thoughts turned to those he had promised he would see again- his sisters, his father, his friends. --_ Rukia, taking one last look at him through the closing doors, heading to her death and still worrying about his safety _\--

He had failed them. He had failed himself.

A new sensation spiked through the pain, now, surging forth far too fast for him to even react to it, before his vision clouded with white. He tried to blink, but found that he couldn’t. At first, he thought it was another sealing technique by Tessai, Urahara’s assistant, but then the white shifted, and he could see what was clearly some kind of liquid pouring out of his own eyes. A new fear set in as he finally registered what was happening. This was it.

He was becoming a Hollow.

“No-” He tried to deny it, tried to will it away somehow, but now it was seeping out of his mouth, and he could feel it starting to settle on the side of his face-- cold, liquid bone forming along his cheek. 

_ ‘NO!’ _

And then his vision went black.

* * *

  
Urahara Kisuke was troubled. Both in terms of his current mood, and his mentality. One didn’t become the leading jailor and chief scientist of a morally-ambiguous kingdom of ghosts without a few flaws, most of them rather worrying. For example, his tendency to not explain things to people before throwing them into life or death scenarios. 

Kurosaki Ichigo was a person of great interest to Kisuke. It went without saying that the boy was talented and powerful and headstrong, but those things could be found by the dozen around the world and just as frequently in the afterlife. There was also the fact that the boy was, unknowingly, a complete freak of nature that encompassed four different species at birth. That was much rarer, but was only just beginning to show any fruit. No, Ichigo was of interest to Kisuke primarily because the boy never once seemed to play by the rules, be it the rules of the society he lived in, the rules of the soul society he would one day inherit, or the rules of the very world itself. His growth and development were at the same time encouraging and highly worrying, for a number of reasons; chief among them the likelihood of the boy drawing the enemy’s attention to himself far too soon. He may well have done so already, being brave or foolish enough to try and fight a captain-level shinigami like he had. But the boy had survived against the odds after having two vitally important spiritual locations in his body savaged by Byakuya Kuchiki’s blade.

And now, he was defying expectations yet again. Under normal circumstances, a plus turning into a hollow would reconfigure itself from the _ body up _, not mask first. In fact, what he was witnessing now felt and looked more like-

He started, before settling back down to observe much more closely this time. Yes, this process wasn’t unlike what the escapees who called themselves Visored underwent. The grizzled scientist didn’t know if he should be praising or cursing his luck, so he compromised with a chuckle. He gently lowered Ururu’s arm, preventing her from unleashing any sort of attack upon the boy he was placing his hopes in, his eyes narrowed beneath the rim of his hat.  
_  
‘Show me that I chose wisely, Kurosaki Ichigo.’ _

_‘Show me that we aren’t defeated just yet.’_

* * *

He slammed into something hard and unyielding back first, wincing at the pain, before gasping as he realized he could breathe without trouble. His eyes flew open, expecting to see the same stone walls and painted ceiling, only to be met with a clouded sky. Sitting up from where he was lying quickly proved to be a mistake, as a sudden bout of vertigo followed the realization that he was, in fact, sitting on the side of a skyscraper in some sort of city. And he wasn’t alone.

He didn’t know how he knew. And as he turned to look “up” the skyscraper, he didn’t need to know how. There, reclining against a flagpole, was Kurosaki Ichigo. Except, it wasn’t. The facial features, the height, the cut of his hair, all of it was right, except for the coloration. The doppelganger’s skin, hair, and clothes were a pale bone-white, and his eyes were black pools around yellow irises. His other self smirked at him, casually pushing off from the pole and beginning to walk closer. As he approached, Ichigo could see that he was wearing a white set of robes that looked an awful lot like the one he was dressed in when he became a shinigami, down to a set of identical but color swapped black socks and belt. The double stopped a couple feet away from the bewildered teen, staring for a solid ten seconds, before grinning widely.

**“Heya Buddy. You’re not looking too good.”** His voice was slightly distorted, and Ichigo realized with a shudder that he had heard that tone before; from the mouths of hollows.

“What’s going on?” He asked, fighting to keep the fear he was feeling out of his voice. The other-him tilted his head, and looked around them, particularly at the sky. The clouds were drawing nearer. It was beginning to drizzle already.

**“You’re turning, Buddy. You knew that already.”** His double’s voice was laced with something he couldn’t identify, but that sounded like regret. The panic began to set back in. He did his best to ignore it.

“Who are you?” The other him looked at him expectantly.

**“Whaddya mean? It’s me, Z$#^E@!U.” ** The expectant look morphed into one of resignation. **“I’d hoped you’d be able ta hear it.” ** There was more than a little sadness in the other him’s voice, even as distorted as it was.

“Are you a Hollow?” He already knew what the answer would probably be, but he had to hear it for himself. To his surprise, his double shrugged.

**“I think I was, once. But not quite, anymore.”** The storm was closing in now.

“What are you now, then?” At this, his likeness grinned widely, showing off more teeth than any of his own smiles ever did.

**“I’m something better, now. ** ** _We’re_ ** ** something better.” ** It was beginning to rain- the clouds had closed in. **“Or, we will be, once you find me.”**

“Find you? But you’re right here.” The Hollow-him nodded, his eyes never once leaving Ichigo’s.

**“That’s more true than you know, but we don’t have time to talk philosophy. In fact…”** What had been a steady, light drizzle exploded into a downpour, dropping entire waves from the sideways sky into the city below them both. To Ichigo’s shock, the water was beginning to rise, rushing forward towards them both at a ridiculous rate. He turned back to his doppelganger, only to see him looking down at him from the flagpole from before.

**“Time’s up, Buddy.”**

And then he was falling. 

Suddenly, gravity was working properly, and he was rushing to meet the rising waves below. A pit formed in his stomach, both from the sensation of falling and the realization that this probably wasn’t anything good. A cackling laugh echoed from above, and the next moment the other Him was there beside him, seemingly running down the length of the building.

**“You should probably stop falling some time soon, you know.”** The grin on his likeness’s face was more than a tad unnerving given the situation. **“If you don’t, you’ll sink until we both go under, just like this world of yours”** Ichigo grit his teeth, desperately searching for anything he could grab onto to stop his fall, only to be met with the sight of the buildings around him crumbling, dissolving into squares that rained down from above.

“And how the HELL do I do THAT?” Ichigo could barely hear himself over the sound of the wind rushing by and the water pouring down, but the stranger replied nonetheless.

**“Well, for starters, you could break your fall. I mean, the landing yer heading for won’t hurt ya, but just tumbling like this is kinda undignified, don’tcha think?”** The humor in his Other’s voice was so apparent he hadn’t really needed to see the grin plastered on his face. Ichigo, however, didn’t agree.

“If I could, I would! But in case you hadn’t noticed, I don’t seem to be wearing black at the moment!” The grin faded, replaced by a humorless glare, one only enhanced by his mirror image’s piercing black and yellow eyes.

**“You don’t get it yet, do you?”** His double asked, his brow furrowing. **“Cute little Rukia’s bastard brother cut ** ** _her_ ** ** powers out of you, but he couldn’t touch yours. Hers were hiding them away.” ** Ichigo didn’t even have the time to register that statement before the other Him stopped abruptly in mid-air, arms spread wide. ** “And now…”** He flung his hand out, pointing to all the falling, cube-shaped fragments of the world around them. **“Now it’s time for you to find them.” **That was the last Ichigo heard before he hit the water, sinking rapidly into the rising flood. It was cold, horribly so, but Ichigo fought through the sensation. A fire had lit itself inside of his chest, and no amount of cold could kill it.

His powers._ His own power. _

It was here, somewhere. He just had to find it. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of boxes, but if it was _ his _ power, he’d be able to tell, wouldn’t he? He’d be able to sense it, following logic.

…

How did he do that again?

_ ‘Oh crap’ _

Thinking fast and hard, Ichigo flung himself back into his memories, desperately trying to remember the times when he was able to feel and locate the souls of others. The night when his family had been attacked, he hadn’t sensed the hollow, only heard it. That wasn’t good enough. He had briefly been able to feel the power in the Hollow Rukia had called Acidwire, but he knew as Sora Inoue, but that was only when he had been about to die at its hands. Grand Fisher was a pro at hiding, and he hadn’t been able to sense him until it was too late either time. That memory bit the hardest into him, before he pushed the pain aside. He had briefly anticipated the strength of the massive hollow he fought with Ishida-

Wait. Ishida. He had said something about detection before. Something about how Shinigami and hollows were different.  
  
_ “... you kn…” _

What was it?  
  
_ “... did you know tha…” _

What had he said?!

_“... that a Shinigami’s spirit threads aren’t like a human’s?”_  
  
Yes! Yes, that was it! They weren’t the same at all! Ichigo grinned widely, thrusting his hands out in victory and calling to the little spiritual energy left inside of him. Answering him were thousands of ribbons, all reaching out to him from every direction. His eyes flickered wildly back and forth through the cloud of fabric, desperately searching. 

_ ‘There!’ _ He flung his arm forward, snapping his grip closed around the sole bit of color in his vision.

_ “They’re red.” _

_ ‘They’re red!’ _

With a triumphant grin and a swift yank, the box was sent tumbling his way, slowing to a stop as it neared him. All around, the rest of the cubes began to drift and fall away, leaving Ichigo in a dark, watery abyss, the light above slowly fading. Somehow, he could still see perfectly fine as a seam formed on the object in front of him, one of its faces falling away to reveal…

“...My sword?” There, in the box, lay what was clearly the hilt to a katana, _ his _ sword, the one he had wielded not even four nights ago against Rukia’s fellow shinigami.

**“Hey, whaddya know- you found me.” ** His double spoke up behind him, a cocky grin upon his face. **“I mean, I had faith in ya, but you took a while there, buddy.”** The grin dropped, and an intimidating look of focus took its place in an instant. **“Now draw your sword, King.”** Ichigo turned to look at him, confusion crossing his features.

“Found you? King? Wha-”

**“You don’t have time for questions!”** His mirror shouted. **“We’re falling apart here! Draw me out or we’ll fucking die in this stinking hole!”** Almost by reflex, Ichigo’s hand leapt to the sword’s hilt, already pulling as soon as his hands wrapped around the grip. As soon as he did, the world around them _ shifted _, the blade caught within the box, and Ichigo knew something was wrong. A feeling that proved true when the decay of the world around them didn’t stop. Panic, pure and unfiltered, surged up within his gut, and would have found itself in his voice had a white fist not latched onto his shirt and pulled him face to face with his other self.

**“We took too long, King, and now it’s all falling apart.” ** The vision of his own face looking so full of regret and fear was something Ichigo had only seen once before. The pale double slowly raised his free hand, setting it beside Ichigo’s on the hilt of the sword. **“Whatever happens next, you need to remember who we are, Ichigo.”**

“Who we are?”

**“We set our fear aside. We never retreat. We can only move forward, Ichigo.”** The young man could feel each word filling him with something akin to courage, to a fearless adrenaline coursing through his very veins. His skin was crackling with lightning. His breath felt like fire. His blood was a boiling ocean. _ Power. _

In the depths of his being, the aching emptiness left behind by the loss of Rukia’s powers slowly shrank.

The hollow-Ichigo in front of him never looked away once, his yellow eyes burning straight through Ichigo’s very soul. Ichigo knew what his companion was now.

**“There’s only one law of the wild for us, King! Retreat and you will decay! Give in to fear and you’ll be consumed! The only path left is to ** ** _conquer!_ ** **”**

His grip tightened on the sword hilt. The tassel snapped off completely, broken under the sheer pressure being exuded through it.

**“WHAT IS MY NAME?!”**

The power rushed through him, into his double, and back, repeating the cycle endlessly, building up power with every movement of every particle in his body. He opened his mouth, distantly aware of the fact that the water around them had long boiled off, suspending them in the pitch black of his impending fate. His voice, amplified by the sheer might running through him like current in a wire, rang out in the infinite emptiness for only one other to hear. 

“...Your name is** Zangetsu**.”  
  
His Zanpakuto grinned. He pulled the sword from the box. The world exploded.  


* * *

Urahara Kisuke was very close to having a heart attack.  
  
Throughout Ichigo’s transformation, he had noted all the telltale signs of resistance to the hollowification process, each one giving him hope that this gamble of his would pay off, that he wouldn’t have to explain to Isshin that his son had become a hollow and they had been forced to put him down. That would end _ very _badly, especially since with Ichigo’s release from his body, and the transformation he was currently undergoing at this very moment, Isshin’s powers would begin returning very soon. Likely within the next few weeks, in fact.  
  
Not really enough time to make amends for all the wicked deeds in his life, if he was being honest with himself.  
  
Below, Tsukabishi Tessai, his longtime friend, confidante, and humble spellcaster/storefront worker, was doing his utmost to keep Kurosaki pinned down and immobilized, but they both knew that the power exuded by a transformation like this wouldn’t be constrained for very long. Indeed, the bindings already placed upon the teen were starting to dissolve in the potent spiritual energy being thrown about within the pit. A quick glance confirmed that already, the mask was fully formed, and the hollow hole completely opened. Curiously enough, after one particular burst of spiritual energy, Kurosaki was suddenly dressed in the shinigami’s shihakusho, with his old, oversized zanpakuto slung back over his shoulder. This would have been a good sign, had they appeared sooner, but at this rate, he was beginning to doubt Kurosaki would make it out of this event unscathed, if at all. His hand drifted unconsciously to his cane, where his beloved Benihime was hidden.

Not a moment later, he was glad he had done so, as the latest explosion of power became a quite literal one, and the energy pouring out of the shaft expanded in a single moment, surging forth in all directions. A quick draw and silent transformation allowed the shopkeeper to shield his assistants from the ensuing fallout by way of blood-shield, but also rendered him unable to see the final results of his risk-taking. It wasn’t until he heard the telltale _ shriek _ of a garganta above them all that he realized what was happening. Following the sound, he cast his gaze upward, into the eyes of his temporary pupil. They were blackened and glowing a vicious yellow, but behind the mask were his eyes. The voice that escaped the mask, however, was _ not _ his student’s.  
  
**“Don’t worry about the King, here. I’ll be sure he gets back in one piece.”** Before he could question the hollow’s motives, it was gone, ducked into the yawning gateway and into the gap between worlds.  
  
It was all Kisuke could do to not curse his luck as he watched the portal in the air close.  
  
It wasn’t fair.  
  
...He still didn’t know how to make one of those.

* * *

Zangetsu was not pleased.  
  
He had many things to not be happy about- nearly dying, remembering how he died in his last existence as White, having to intervene in Ichigo’s awakening to such a degree, nearly dying… 

But really, he was most irritated with the fact that because of Urahara Kisuke’s methods, he was having to do something that, as far as he knew, had never been done before.   
  
Ichigo emerging as a Visored, a hollow-enhanced Shinigami, was the best case scenario of what had just occurred in that infernal pit. Emerging as an Arrancar, an enlightened Hollow with the powers of a Shinigami, a least-desired, but still acceptable result. But now? Neither of those would work. Ichigo had technically completely regained his shinigami powers in that moment, but so too was his soul so twisted from the consequences of the methods used that he couldn’t rightly be considered anything resembling a shinigami.  
  
He was simultaneously both and neither.  
  
It was a condition Zangetsu was quite used to, considering his own nature, but it wasn’t the least bit healthy for his wielder and other self. Had Zangetsu not usurped control, he mused, the young man may in fact have just outright died on the spot- a spontaneous soul suicide.  
  
A disturbing possibility, and one he’d like to avoid if at all possible. So here he was, wrestling with both sides of Ichigo’s awakened powers, trying to balance them out and not die at the same time. It was tough going just to get the boy’s spiritual body moving through the Dangai, the realm between realms, to reach the one place Zangetsu knew would be of help.  
  
Hueco Mundo.  
  
Everything about the realm of hollows was beneficial to them, save for the actual act of surviving itself. That would be an issue, but one they would figure out once they survived _ this _ ordeal. And survive they would. Even while wrestling with two competing natures, and trying to keep Ichigo’s body together until they could reach safety, Zangetsu could feel it- Ichigo’s determination, simmering just below and out of sight, but still present. Still felt. Zangetsu grinned through Ichigo’s face. It hurt, from all the screaming he had been doing, but even that helped bring clarity to the spirit. Pain was a reminder, after all.  
  
Soon, it might be all they knew. But Zangetsu would do his utmost to ensure that never happened. If he could do nothing else…  
  
He would protect Ichigo.

* * *

  
The sands of Hueco Mundo drifted slowly, carried by a thin breeze that never seemed to cease. The moon above, twisted into a crescent, wept pale light upon the white desert; an eye closed in sorrow.

The quartz trees stretched, as though grasping for the moon with upturned arms. Their white branches were some of the only landmarks for miles, stark against the endless, starless night.  
  
These sands had bore witness to eons of conflict, violence, atrocity, change, and evolution.  
  
They would be witness to something new tonight.  
  
The sky cracked, ripping open into a gaping maw, depositing Ichigo and Zangetsu into the sands below. As soon as their shared body touched down, Zangetsu went to work, wrestling both of the awakened natures as best he could. The very air around them was so full of hollow reishi that the act of breathing empowered the spirit, allowing him to wrangle their hollow nature with comparative ease. It was the Shinigami aspect of their soul that was causing trouble. The powers that had assimilated him within the boy’s soul didn’t take too kindly to what was occurring one bit, but they didn’t have the luxury of choice right now.   
  
And so, with great effort, Zangetsu slammed the two in one another, dragging the two powers within their mental representation together and unifying them irreversibly. For a moment, nothing happened. The spirit blinked, looking down at Ichigo’s body in confusion.  
  
**“That… shouldn’t have-”** He was cut off by an explosion of power, ripping through their body and bringing him to the brink of consciousness in a single moment. The mask on their face cracked, and the sword on his back _ burned. _He fought to keep their eyes open, but the pain and strain were too great, and he succumbed soon afterwards, falling into a darkness without a moon.

* * *

Inoue Orihime was not the most spatially aware of young women. She tripped on something every day. She almost never looked both ways before crossing the street, and had nearly been hit by cars for her mistakes. She was, admittedly, something of a weirdo and often mistaken for a bit of an airhead. But none of this meant she wasn’t perceptive. She always knew intrinsically when something was wrong, and recently those feelings had begun growing stronger, allowing her to glean more information from each one. As such, as soon as it happened, she was aware of it;  
  
Something had changed in her world. Something, somewhere, had irrevocably shifted out of the shape it was meant to be in.  
  
She didn’t know what, but a spike of worry set into her heart in that moment.

* * *

Sado “Chad” Yasutora was a quiet man- taciturn not by choice, but by nature. He rarely spoke more than a few words, as that was often all he needed to get his meaning across. This was often construed as a sign that he wasn’t as intelligent as the people he associated with, but this wasn’t true at all. He was a rather keen individual who just didn’t feel like showing off. Chad was a good listener, a skill that came from his _ abuelo _, who taught him all the forms of compassion a man could teach. Lately, he had begun to hear more than just voices from people- but their feelings as well. It had started not too long ago, and he'd been attuning himself to all his friends ever since what Ichigo was calling the "Great Hollow Clusterfuck" that had dragged all of them into the world Ichigo now lived in. Just thinking about his friend right now pained the gentle giant. He had sworn that he'd always be ready to help his best friend, and wasn't able to when he needed him most.  
  
And right now, try as he might…  
  
He couldn’t hear Ichigo at all.

* * *

  
Kuchiki Rukia bolted upright with a gasp from her meagre bedroll in the Sixth Squadron’s lockup, her hand leaping to her heart.  
  
Something had changed, just now. She was still devoid of her power, but something had just changed- _ returned _ to her. A frantic glance about the cell told her she was alone, but her instincts told her otherwise.  
  
A brief chill settled over her shoulders, and her heart clenched.  
_  
“It has been some time, Lady Rukia.” _ The gentle, royal tones of her zanpakuto swept through the room, as though a winter breeze had just been let in. Rukia clutched her robe tightly, almost to remind herself that this was in fact happening.

“S-Sode-no-Shirayuki… you have returned.” Her voice was trembling, despite all her attempts to control it. Nevertheless, the sheer relief and sorrow contained in her words spoke for themselves. In answer, the shinigami felt the invisible arms of her companion wrap around her shoulders, pulling her into the older woman’s embrace. Rukia fought her burgeoning tears with everything she had, as Shirayuki gently stroked her hair comfortingly.  
  
There was only one explanation she could reach that would explain why her beloved, beautiful sword had returned to her, and the grief welling up inside of her dampened any joy she might have felt at regaining a lost piece of herself.  
  
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” She asked, not wanting an answer, yet yearning for one despite herself. Her zanpakuto never stopped her movements, her soothing presence soaking into the entire room as she did so. A small smile graced the spirit’s blue lips.  
  
_“In a sense, yes.”_ Her wielder choked back a sob in her arms, and the spirit tightened her embrace. _“But then…”_  
  
_“One must die in order to become a true Shinigami, do they not?”_ Rukia stiffened in her arms, her shock overwhelming her sorrow.

“Then…?”  
_  
“Yes, he has come into his own powers. The boy no longer needs me. I don’t think he ever really did, but it was…” _ The spirit took a moment to gather her words. _“It was nice, being his sword. While I was there, his burdens were lifted.” _ She clasped one of her hands over Rukia’s. _“While we _both_ were with him, the rain was lifted from his heart. And now, he is able to stand on his own.”_

_ “Be proud, Rukia. Your actions saved not just that boy’s life, but his soul as well.” _   
  
Relief and joy coursed through the small woman, and she found it in herself to smile. At the very least, Ichigo was alright, and her sword had returned.

If she was going to die, she wouldn’t be dying alone.

* * *

Ichigo awoke with a start, eyes flying open. He lay inside a crater blown into the desert, the white sand slowly trickling back in as the wind carried it.

Clutched in his hand was a white sword with a black edge, its shape that of a massive cleaver.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you for reading!  
This is a story that I've had in my mind for a long time. It's evolved over time, from including OCs to sticking to canon, to involving the novels or games or movies, until I finally got a decent set of guidelines and outlines squared away in my head.  
This is the first thing I've published on this website, and the first thing I've published in a long time on any site, so I ask that you bear with me as I shake the rust off.  
Some important things to note: this story will not feature the narrative device that is "Stronger spiritual energies repel weaker attacks". This plot device just won't be appearing in this story. There are several reasons for it, but I'll explain more once we get to chapters that will help explain why. If you liked it, let me know, and if you have a nitpick or complaint, please be polite and I'll get back to you if I can.  
Thank you again for reading, and I hope you look forward to reading more as much as I look forward to writing it.


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